The Order of the Sacred Earth

Below is the third and final part of an essay I wrote for the book, Order of the Sacred Earth, authored by one of my mentors, Matthew Fox, along with Skylar Wilson and Jennifer Berit Listug. Enjoy!

The Order of the Sacred Earth offers a promising path towards a more sustainable, healthy, and corporative future on our planet. It is based on a story that is Spirit centered, Earth centered, and community centered. It asks would be participants to commit to a sensible, sustainable, and viable future. It asks of us to transcend our differences and rally around our common interest, a livable planet. The OSE appreciates that our survival is dependent on our combined action. It suggests that the issues that threaten our existence are a plea for us to step into the next phase of our collective evolution.

The OSE calls on us to pursue the development of our higher potentials individually as well as collectively, celebrating the power and value of our uniqueness while also acknowledging the greater synergistic value of our mutuality. Accordingly, community is central to its formation. The idea of a community embraces the notion that the whole is greater that the sum of the parts. We are capable of more by working together than alone. At the higher stages of human development an individual sees itself intricately linked to others, and knows that isolation limits its own capacity to maximize its potential to add value in the world. Through community we are able to take advantage of each other’s gifts and generate more power to act on our objectives.

The OSE calls on us to take full responsibility for our connection to this Earth. It recognizes that we are the Earth. It understands that care of the Earth is care for ourselves, and that its health reflects that of our own. The OSE invites us to explore together sustainable ways of living that allows for the greatest amount of well-being for all. It invites us to take a vow to collectively care for the Earth as a means to commit to our common interest. The OSE appreciates the sacredness of this Earth. The simple fact that we cannot exist without it suggests that the Earth deserves our reverence.

The OSE isn’t dogmatic. It encourages us to explore and discover new ideas while preserving the best of what we already know. It invites to seek wisdom from all sources of human knowledge from science to religion. It welcomes the atheist, the agnostic, as well as the religious. Regardless of our preference, it ask us to embrace the wisdom from the various religious traditions without falling prey to outdated dogmas that could constrain our capacity to experience the deeper dimensions of what they have to offer. It invites us to accept the gifts of science, while not succumbing to a dogmatic notion that it is the sole progenitor of and means to knowledge.

The OSE recognizes and embraces the power and validity of spiritual/mystical experience. Owing to its subjectivity, admittedly there are a variety of ways to describe these types of experiences. Interpretations are dependent on one’s worldview. For example, a Christian will likely interpret a spiritual experience in terms of a Christian ideological framework. A staunch scientific materialistic may even deny the legitimacy or subjective value of the experience, and may simply describe it as a mere byproduct of an extraordinary shift in biochemistry. Nonetheless, in my opinion, these different perspectives do not invalidate the value or relevancy of spiritual experience in human life. Mystics from various traditions and cultures, from past to present suggest that the essence of mystical experience is fundamental to our nature. Common qualitative descriptors for them are a feeling of bliss, boundlessness, love, awe, beauty, light, and wonder. These are the type of qualities that the OSE suggest we cultivate to support a more sustainable and loving world. The OSE acknowledges that no one has sole ownership on how to name or access these experiences. It therefore encourages exploration into the multiplicity of avenues that are available to us. We currently have access to a plethora of ancient and contemporary methodologies from all around the world. They are designed to maximize our capacity to tap into spiritual experience, as well as develop our ability to express the qualities they evoke in our daily lives.

The OSE offers a great opportunity for us to come together to not only solve the problems that face our existence, but to become more fully human. I believe that the more fully human we become, the more we’ll embrace a manner of living that is sustainable, communal, affable, loving, kind, and compassionate. The challenges we are facing encourages us to move forward in our evolution. I believe that the OSE is the kind of collective movement that will contribute not only to our survival, but also to our capacity to harmoniously thrive together on this precious Earth for generations to come.